CHAPTER 1

MATEO

H ave you ever had to sit by and watch the love of your life meet the love of his life? Have you had to just sit there, relegated to the sidelines, and watch him fall irrevocably in love with someone else? Have you had to sit there and pretend you were oh-so okay with it? Because, you know, you were supposed to have moved on by now.

Yeah right.

How the hell did anyone simply just move on from the love of their life? Especially after having waited patiently for eight long, long years for it to finally be your turn to be with him? Eight years of pining and secretly yearning for the man who thought of you only as his friend. Eight years of watching him fall easily in and out of relationships with other guys, never single long enough for you to get your chance with him.

Eight years of desperate longing and sad, lonely pining until finally, finally , you get your shot and you take it and you grab it with everything you have and you hold on tight with both hands. As tight as you dare without scaring him off with the intensity of your love. But not tight enough to stop him from walking away from you at the end of it.

Six months of loving him. Six months of waking up beside him, sharing kisses and bodies and hearts and minds. And then nothing. Gone.

Concluso. Terminato. è finito .

But you don't give up on hope just yet. No, you hold onto that cruellest of dreams with everything you have because you and Nick are meant to be – end game, fated, forever, your future husband with a dream house on the coast and a hoard of kids and a love that will never die. One of you will break eventually and everything will be all right with the world. Right? Right?

And then suddenly Ajay Olivier and his sweet, pretty face and his big, innocent eyes walk onto your beach and the final nail in your failed relationship hits the coffin. Because I knew. I knew the minute I laid eyes on Ajay Olivier that Nick was going to fall for him. It didn't matter that Ajay might have had a girl on his arm. It didn't even matter that he might have thought himself entirely straight. He had caught the full force of Nick's incredible attention and I knew it was only a matter of time.

Ajay was gorgeous, okay. As much as it pained me to admit, I could acknowledge the guy was hot and so pretty to look at that it hurt sometimes. That, I could compete with. But Ajay also had that sweetness and kindness about him, attributes I'd never even remotely possessed, plus that slightly innocent fa?ade that I knew would make Nick weak at the knees.

And so, I'd had to just stand by and watch as the love of my life fell head over heels for the boy with the big brown eyes and head full of cute brown curls. Oh, I'd done my best to wedge myself in between them. I'd taken every opportunity I could to subtly imply that Nick was mine and I wouldn't be letting him go anytime soon. Took opportunities to put my hands on him or try to keep his attention my way.

None of it worked. None of it mattered. Because Nick's eyes and Nick's attention had been stolen by Ajay and I no longer existed to him.

I was desperate enough that I'd even resorted to the leopard print speedos, the ones that had worked for me in the past on that best day of my life when Nick had finally looked my way. It was almost a year ago to the day when Nick had finally looked and actually seen me, not his best friend, not his housemate but me, a guy who clearly wanted him.

Nick had been freshly single though not overly cut up over breaking up with the guy whose name I no longer cared to remember. That preppy accountant who must have had some kind of magic dick because he was otherwise a total bore. Snooze fest alert.

But I digress. Back to that fateful day, the one with the leopard print speedos and just Nick and me and a hot summer's day, the tang of fate in the air. We were at the Tempe family home, the dream house that sat on the boardwalk overlooking the sand and sea in our home town of Esperance on the South Coast, three hours from Sydney. The house that was a second home to me. The only place where I had ever been able to be myself.

Rob, our other best friend and my current housemate, had been held up for some forgotten reason long since consigned to history. So it had just been me and Nick out on his back deck, enjoying the hot sun on a lazy Sunday afternoon. We had gone swimming in the pool, something I knew Nick had only done for me given how much he and Rob loved the ocean. Personally I could live without all that sand and salt but it ran in Nick's veins, he lived and breathed it. So I put up with it. For him.

Nick was swimming and I was sunbaking on the deck, watching him the way I always did. The way I had always done. He was so at home in the water, like a second skin on him as he swam laps. He came out of the pool eventually, the water dripping down his golden torso, the sun glistening on his skin and highlighting the streaks in his long, golden brown hair.

I can say with true honesty that one of the most unfortunate things about Australian men was their propensity to wear long board shorts. Hideous things really but I couldn't lie that I had other motives for wishing Nick would shed them for something more appealing to the eye.

Not that he needed any assistance in that regard. His body was a wonderland and my body reacted to him the way it always did, the way it had been doing since I'd first moved to Australia from Italy and met the thirteen-year-old boy who would become my closest friend.

I was used to my reaction and I was adept at hiding it from him. But I hadn't that day, a boldness creeping over me as he had padded towards me for his towel, bright blue eyes doing a double take when they landed on me.

"That boner for me?" he'd said, the joke apparent on his face. And why not? Yes we were both gay men, him openly so since the age of sixteen when he'd announced his sexuality to the world and broken my young heart for the first time when he'd immediately started dating the year twelve sports captain. Me still hidden deeply within the darkest reaches and confines of the closet. Only Rob, Nick and Nick's parents knew my darkest secret.

But he and I had never gone there before. Never flirted. Never hinted. Never crossed even the most innocent of lines. Hidden and locked away from what I really felt for him.

"What if it is?" I'd returned, watching as confusion flitted across Nick's perfectly gorgeous face before it was replaced with something that had my heart pounding hard in my chest. It was enough to give me the boldness to say words I thought I'd never say. Not to him. Not to Nick.

"Want to suck it?" I'd offered, leaning casually back on my sun lounge as though it was neither here nor there to me whether he did or not. I knew I had a body worth looking at and I found great pleasure in watching Nick's eyes light a path down my skin, leaving a blaze in his wake.

His brows lifted, amusement streaking across his eyes at my outrageous flirting before that predatory grin had taken over. The grin that I had witnessed but never had directed my way before. My pulse spiked in my chest as he took one artful step towards me. Then another.

He knelt on my sun lounge, eyes on mine as he slowly leaned forward, waiting for me to blink first and call it out as a joke. We'd never crossed this line before. Not even close. But I didn't, my breath hitching as his eyes tracked down my body like a caress, right to my rock hard dick before they drifted back up to mine. Held.

"You sure this is what you want?" he asked, one solitary knuckle tracing up the length of my dick, causing me to suck in a sharp breath.

"Yes. Suck me, Nick," I'd returned, all pretences gone. He noticed the change, the reality of the situation dawning on us both. He knew what it would mean if we did this, if we crossed those clearly demarcated boundaries that formed our solid friendship. I could see the thousands of thoughts crossing Nick's mind, uncertainty, confusion, fear. And then I saw the moment he made up his mind, the moment he agreed to cross the boundaries with me and test out our years of friendship.

"If I'm going to suck your dick, I think I should at least kiss you first," he'd said. He spoke calmly, like this was any other day of the week between us while my heart was fit to burst as it pounded like a herd of stampeding elephants in my chest.

And then Nick had slowly leant his head forward, dipped his mouth as those full lips I had dreamed a million dreams over finally, finally met mine. And he had kissed me and it was everything I had ever hoped, dreamed and imagined it to be.

And then he had peeled my swimmers down my legs and given me the best blowjob of my life that it had been all I could do to pray to the Madonna and thank the universe for this greatest of gifts.

Nick and I had snuck around for the first few weeks, hiding out in each other's bedrooms until our housemate, Rob, finally knocked on my door while we were lying together and told us to quit treating him like an imbecile. I'd almost had a panic attack while Nick had just laughed hysterically. He had always been like that though, always able to see the best in every situation while I catastrophized. The sunshine to my gloom. The best parts of me.

We'd never managed to say those three little words to each other, no exchanged declarations of love, no whispered I love yous in the dead of the night. I wished I'd had the braveness to say it to him back then, the words I felt at my heart, at my very core. Now I'd always be left wondering. Wondering if he would have said the words back to me if I'd been brave enough to say them first. If it would have changed things between us if he knew how much I loved him. Whether he would have stayed.

But it didn't change the facts. Nick never said he loved me in all the months we were together. Not like that day only a month ago when he admitted to me that he loved Ajay after only a matter of weeks with him. How that had hurt.

But by then it had all been over between us. And it was all because of me. I had nearly killed Nick's sunshine, crushed him with my debilitating need for secrecy. Because nobody could know what Nick was to me. Nobody but him and now Rob and now Nick's parents. The net kept on widening and my panic had grown each day until I crushed him.

And he'd left me. Left me and left our home and moved back in with his parents to his beautiful Hampton's home on the coast.

Part of me was so convinced that we were destined, that Nick was a part of me and me a part of him that it was only a matter of time. Only a matter of time before one of us cracked, either him accepting me in all my closeted glory or me caving and telling my family about me and living with their reproval and rebuke. Their disappointment and disdain. Their hate.

But neither of those eventualities had played out in the end and now I had to just sit by and watch as Nick fell irrevocably in love with bloody Ajay Olivier. I hated the guy. I honestly did. He'd stolen my one true love from me and I would never forgive him for it.

"You're looking mighty serious there, Mateo." I glanced up, falling out of my trance as the kind face of my boss, Dante, came into view. He was perched on the edge of his massive architect's desk while I had been caught out in my downward spiral, a place I had found myself dwelling in more and more with each passing day.

I owed Dante better than this. He'd given me this job as a trainee draftsperson in his small architect firm despite my complete lack of qualifications and education. Sure, it was a family favour but that was how our small community of ex-pat Italians functioned. Even if I didn't actually want to work as a draftsperson. Didn't mean I needed to take his kindness for granted. Especially as I considered Dante closer to me than even my own parents.

"Sorry," I returned, sucking in a deep, calming breath. "I'll get back onto those blueprints now."

"I'm not worried about the blueprints, Mateo," Dante continued, his Italian accent as thick as my parents. He had come from a village in the same province of Trieste as us which basically made him blood as far as our family were concerned. He was much older than me but he was a dead set silver fox with his dark olive skin and thick black hair with its distinguished grey streaks. If I hadn't viewed him as a parental figure I might well have been in trouble. Well, that and his doting wife, Giulia, who I loved as an aunt.

"You've been in a dark mood for weeks, tesoro . Something's troubling you," Dante pressed. I leaned back in my chair, knowing there was no way he would be letting this go. That was not his way and truthfully, he was pretty much the only person on the planet who could get me to open up. But there was no way in hell I was telling him the real reason for my despair.

"It's honestly nothing, uncle," I tried to assure him. The artfully raised eyebrow on his handsome face told me he hadn't bought what I was selling.

"No? Well how are those friends of yours going then? Maybe they can get you out of your funk if you won't talk to me."

"Bit hard to pin them down," I admitted quietly. "Rob has been seeing Kat a lot lately and Nick …"

"Yes? What of Nick?" Dante pressed, leaning in closer.

"I haven't seen him much lately either. He's been spending a lot of time up in Sydney with his new boyfriend," I told him, trying to keep the heartache out of my tone. It had also been Nick's suggestion that we give each other this time and space. He'd told me I needed space to move on from him and he'd needed space to focus on his relationship with Ajay. Both were ridiculous suggestions. As if I could ever move on from him. But I could see the way Dante's brows had risen again, a look of confusion crossing his face.

"Boyfriend?" he mulled, scratching his jaw. I wasn't sure why he was surprised by that news. Nick had always been open about his sexuality and in a small town like ours it was pretty common knowledge. "But I thought …"

"You thought what?" I asked, a stab of panic slicing through me at where Dante's thoughts had just gone. He glanced back at me, confusion and sadness sliding across his face before it was abruptly gone.

"Never mind," he said with a shake of his head. "But I imagine that must be difficult for you. You and Nick were always so … close."

My eyes found his before I quickly glanced away again. I had often wondered if Dante knew about me. Whether he'd figured it out on his own or whether the way I spoke constantly of Nick had clued him in. I couldn't panic too much about it though. He could never know. He was too close to my parents and there was no way he could ever know the truth.

"I suppose," I offered instead.

"And you? Do you have any jobs in Sydney planned? Maybe getting up there for a bit yourself would do you some good," he asked.

"Nothing in the pipeline at present but I should know in the next couple of weeks," I told my boss. That was the other amazing thing about Dante. I had a contract with Sydney's top modelling agency which often required me to travel at the drop of a hat, usually to photoshoots or fashion shows three hours away in Sydney. Dante was incredibly accommodating about my side career.

Although truthfully, I'd been travelling up to Sydney for weekend breaks since the moment I could drive. And not just for modelling shoots. I remembered driving there the day after I got my driver's license at the age of seventeen. I'd driven straight to the nearest gay club I could find on Google maps and talked my way in without even needing a fake ID. It was amazing what a face like mine could get away with. I knew it and I was not afraid to admit I used my looks to my advantage.

The bartender had not been so easily fooled but he'd poured me a soft ginger beer and I had taken barely a sip before a guy slid onto the stool beside me. I hadn't even cared what he looked like but I saw the way his eyes had drunk me in, that slightly starstruck look in his eye that men often got when they looked at me. Women too for that matter.

"How old are you?" he'd asked in a gravelly voice.

"Old enough," I shrugged.

That seemed to be good enough for him because next thing I knew I was shoved up against the cracked bricks at the back of the club, his rough hands down my pants and his tongue spearing my throat. He didn't prep me at all and it had hurt like the infernos of hell when he had turned me around, pulled down my jeans, sheathed himself with a condom and shoved his enormous dick inside me. But I'd loved every minute of it, that burn, that pain, that sting, that fleeting undertone of pleasure that I had latched onto with all my might and chased.

But mostly it was the knowing. The knowing that I was exactly where I was supposed to be even if it meant I would burn in hell like my parents had told me.

He lasted all of four minutes. My dick had gone too soft with the onslaught of pain to get myself off but he hadn't much cared about that as he zipped himself up and left.

Afterwards, I'd staggered into the bathroom to clean myself up before returning to the bar and gingerly sitting back down on the same stool. The next guy hadn't bothered asking my age before I'd found myself once again pressed up against that same brick wall in that dingy alley, another dick in my ass.

It was at one of those gay clubs in Sydney that I had met the guy who would become my agent. He'd sidled up to me like many other guys had done before him and given me the same once over I had come to expect.

"I have a question for you," he'd said casually.

"The answer is yes," I told him, not one to play games. That was not what I was here for.

"Wait for the question first," he'd smirked back. "I own Elite Model Management and I want to sign you up."

"Yeah?" I'd asked. "Should we go out the back to discuss the finer details?"

He'd laughed, amusement in his eyes. "That's the question. If you want to sign with me then we won't be going out the back. Ever. If you don't want to sign with me, well, that's another story."

And so I'd sat on the stool and heard him out. His name was Glen Akers and he was the most sophisticated guy I'd ever met. He also seemed legit. I Googled him while he was ordering us drinks and I could see both his company and he himself were the real deal with big name luxury clients a mile long. So I'd signed with Elite on the spot in the middle of that shady gay club and never looked back.

Signing with Elite had also been a really great excuse to keep going up to Sydney in the years since. I'd gone regularly, always seeking out a new club so as not to become recognisable. It was the only place I'd ever truly felt free.

Until Nick.

But I hadn't been back to Sydney for that particular reason in almost a year. Definitely not in the nearly six months since Nick and I had broken up. I hadn't really wanted to if I was honest.

Dante let out a deep sigh but I couldn't let myself look at him, afraid he would see the heartbreak in my eyes and know the truth.

"You know I am here for you, Mateo?" he said quietly.

"I know," I replied, my throat tightening up at his kind words.

I felt his firm hand on my shoulder before he stepped back to his desk, conversation over. I shook out my thoughts, tried to focus on the blueprints and tried to forget about Nick.

An impossible task if ever I'd had one.